


knitting together

by down



Category: Brother Cadfael - Ellis Peters, Cadfael Chronicles - Ellis Peters
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-26
Updated: 2011-12-26
Packaged: 2017-10-28 04:21:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/303677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/down/pseuds/down
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not long after 'One Corpse Too Many' Cadfael finds himself tending to his new friend again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	knitting together

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dizzy_fire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy_fire/gifts).



> Thanks to dizzy_fire for an excuse to try writing Cadfael! (Hopefully I got the tone something moderately right in this?) Thanks also to Trialia for being a beta-reading hero for me and a host of other people!
> 
> (More book canon than tv, but in my mind they will always look like Derek Jacobi and Sean Pertwee~ <3)

Cadfael was hard at work among the pots and the sweet-smelling bunches of herbs hung to dry about his workshop. His hands were lain not, for now, on any of his preparations, or on his knives or his pestle. He bore plain water and a rag, and the surface he worked on was skin.

Hugh Beringar sat before him on the bed, curved to bare the long line of his back, and the ragged wound running down his shoulder. His head hung low and his tone was wry as he broke down every mistake he had made to end up so. “I should have waited for my armsmen, of course, but I feared by the time they had both heard and reached me Alden would be out of sight, and I still do not know the paths to Wales as well as I might wish.”

“So you took off after him alone, knowing that he had men waiting to collect him once his errand was done.” Cadfael said, on a sigh. “It’s a mercy they didn’t tear more than just your skin for you.” He had heard of Hugh’s disappearance not long after it happened, and suffered an anxious three hours until Hugh reappeared in his doorway, pale under the mud. His only relief was that Aline had been away from Shrewsbury, and did not have to share in this particular worry.

“Alden would never have done so much as that, if my horse hadn’t started when he turned to fight.” Hugh sounded resigned to his injury, but his body put the lie to his tone, muscles tense under the cloth as Cadfael cleaned his shoulder with strokes firm enough to shift the heavy mud which had dried there. There was the faintest flinch each time his hands passed over the cut, but anything more gentle would do more harm than good. “And, yes, it was nothing more than I deserved, taking an untested mount out on such business, no need to tell me so.”

Cadfael bit down on a smile. “Then I will only say that I hope you will remember so next time.” He said, mildly, and Hugh huffed. “Was it the horse or Alden who dumped you into a stream?”

The shift and tunic abandoned on the floor were both as heavy with mud and water as their owner, who nudged at them now with one foot. Despite the hour it was still so warm that they would dry swiftly, even in the evening, but the dirt and the blood would take some considerable effort to remove.

“Neither. It seemed the most prudent way of becoming more trouble than I was worth to follow.” Hugh admitted, head dropping lower as Cadfael considered his back, decided it was as clean as possible, and debated his next step. The wound was bleeding again after his ministrations, but not too badly, so he set aside thoughts of yarrow to slow the loss, and reached to soak a bandage in betony to help it close clean and soon. “It was more of a ditch than a stream, and wallowing through it not appealing.”

“Not when he had his duty to complete, at least. If you had reached his masters, I doubt you would have got away so lightly.” Cadfael said, and his own heart winced at the thought of Hugh charging headlong into such danger. Normally the newly-minted deputy sheriff was less foolhardy than most people, but once he had set himself to something there was little in this world which would turn him aside, and the boy, Alden, had fled Shrewsbury in possession of certain letters important to the previous holders of the castle, ousted by Stephen only a few months previously.

It was strange to think that the man before him had been a stranger at that time. Hugh had come to pledge himself to Stephen, late enough in the day that he would never have been trusted to fight against Adeney and FitzAlan, who he had grown up both knowing and respecting, neatly saving himself for a time from crossing swords with friends who had chosen the other side in this increasingly bitter struggle for the throne. Not that it would save him for long, Cadfael reflected, hands slowing in his work. Even now, FitzAlan was said to be in the woods himself, awaiting his young squire’s return. If Hugh had found them...

“Would you have handed the letters to Stephen, if you had rescued them?” Cadfael found himself asking, and Hugh tightened to a stone-stillness under his touch.

“ _King_ Stephen is my liege, and has instructed me to find those letters and have them brought to him.”

Rumour had told Cadfael the letters contained some indication of Maud’s plans for retaking England, no more. If the King had personally instructed their seizure, and FitzAlan, hearing such, had sent Alden to thwart that, they must indeed be of some import. Sufficient to have firmed Hugh’s standing among the King’s men, which was still insecure enough that he was being kept subtly to Shrewsbury, where he could be watched. His failure might be taken as doing the opposite, which would account for the tension thrumming through his wiry frame. But somehow Cadfael did not think it the true reason.

“He also bid you find Godith and hand her over to him.”

A smile flitted across Hugh’s face. “Such a good memory does not become you. Godith had sworn herself to neither Maud nor Stephen, and I was, besides, responsible for her until we spoke to break the betrothal. Nor did Stephen fully accept my oath until after that.”

Which would have led many men to abandon the earlier trust, Cadfael thought, wryly. “True. Still, let us, while we are safe from prying ears, be thankful that there will be no bloodshed over them. Alden was a frequent patient of mine before this war began, I had no wish to find myself faced with his death, especially not at the hands of a friend.”

“I didn’t know him well enough to call him a friend, Brother.”

“My friend, I meant. Now, hold still while I tie this, or it will be coming loose before you reach the bridge.” Cadfael scolded, and felt Hugh relax again, head dropping back down. He was softly wistful for the flexibility of his youth, left long behind now, worn down by scars and toil Hugh had yet before him. “I swear, Aline and I have enough work without having to conspire to keep you in one piece! Have some thought for us, next time, and wait for your mail and your armsmen to reach you.”

“Sometimes, Cadfael, I still cannot tell whether you trust me or not.” Hugh said, teasingly, but with a grain of truth to the words.

“Trust you to be a good man, yes. Trust you to not throw yourself into things wholeheartedly? You wouldn’t be yourself if you didn’t.” Cadfael told him, and it was true. For all that he was still uncertain what Hugh might do sometimes, in the tangled conflicts of loyalties facing them all, he trusted him.

Not, he considered wryly, that the conflict was supposed to reach him, in his comfortable retirement here behind the Abbey walls, but the Church was power enough to be an unavoidable participant in this fight. Through getting in the way, if nothing more. The impatience to go and do what he could to end it was fortunately a fleeting, though frequent, impulse. And now he had another reason to be thankful for his vows; if he had a bias in this fight, it was probably for Maud, who had shown as fierce a spirit as her cousin, and was indeed the only child of the last King, and the crown had been taken from her by a mass breaking of vows sworn to her. To take arms for Maud would have meant taking them against Hugh, and that was a thing which didn’t bear thinking about.

“A good man.” Hugh said, quietly. “There are those in Shrewsbury who will believe nothing of the sort of me.”

“Petronilla and Edric Flesher would think better of you if you took them word that I have had news of Godith, safely in France - and safely married, too, with her family’s permission.” Cadfael said, mildly. Hugh started up, but a firm hand on the back of his neck had him leaning back down before he got too far.

“You’ve had word from them? How?”

“I’ve not been hiding anything, I promise you that. A messenger arrived this morning from Winchester for the Abbot, carrying a note, and a small gift of thanks for the Abbey which took some swift explaining on my behalf.” Hugh huffed a laugh as Cadfael reached about him to pass the binding about his chest. It had taken remarkably little explanation to satisfy the Abbot’s curiosity about why Adeney’s daughter would be thankful for the sanctuary granted an unrelated boy who fled not long after entering the cloister. “Godith added her hopes that you were well, also.” He finished tying the dressing. “There. Keep from moving that arm too much for the next few days, and it should heal soon enough.”

“If I promise to do so, will you believe me?”

Cadfael patted him on the undamaged shoulder, standing to return his tools to their rightful places. “I will believe you will do your best, until something you consider more important comes along. Still, perhaps between us your Lady and I will be able to keep you to your word long enough to do some good.”

“You two are set to conspire against me, it seems.” Hugh murmured.

The memory rose of watching Hugh face off against Courcelle, Aline clinging to him, both of them fraught as the duel continued, for both of them loved the man fighting. “Yes.” Cadfael said, simply, and poured a cup of berry wine for Hugh. “Drink this, and wait here. I shall go and see if I can find something cleaner for you to wear back to the castle. These would soak right through your bandages.”

“Thank you, Cadfael.” Hugh said, and he said it with a tone which made Cadfael turn back to look at him. “...For the welcome, as much as the bandaging.”

“You shall always be welcome here, Hugh. Now, drink up.” Cadfael said, and stepped briskly out into the relative quiet of the night.


End file.
